In VGA mode it takes a decent picture. This mode is good enough to see stop lights & the cars in the field of view. The wide angle lense provides a very good picture of what is going on, but there is some loss of clarity. You can read the licence plate of cars stoped directly in front of you, and with some time you might pick up a letter/number at a time for moving cars. It is much like a cell phone cam & shows cars pulling in your lane, or crossing the light well.

I set the motion detect mode on. At first it was not active at the time I started recording, but then I stopped the car – powering the F198 down & when I powered back up, it was in motion detect mode. The mode is not sensitive enough & is not acceptable for use when driving, so I advise leaving motion detect mode off.

At VGA resolution, it could record three 15 minute clips on 2 Gb. Then it deletes the oldest file when creating a new file. This process takes 2-3 seconds.

The F198 has a car-off detection & will stop recording when the car is off. This requires a switched circuit. The F198 detects loss of power & properly closes the active file using the battery before powering down. When the power input comes back, the F198 automatically resumes recording. If your cigar lighter is not switched… this feature will not work.

The menu is a bit difficult, so read the directions. The IR led mode works well from about 3-4 feet. similar to filming with a flashlight. You do not want to use IR mode for night driving because you will be recording the windsheid reflection… use standard mode.

The mount did not have a swivel end on it, so you end up extending it more than desired to get the correct angle. A better mount willl lower the profile of the camera in the window.

The LCD screen does not switch off when closed. This would be nice, but my battery did not go dead when recording over night.

I believe I got about what I expected because I first looked the camera up on the internet google/yahoo & also saw a video on you-tube. It is useful & of reasonable quality for the very low price.

Using this item for 2 weeks. It creates new files any 2, 5 or 15 minutes of recording (you can choose). It has 3 quality modes (VGA, DL, SxGA(HD)). Tried sxga, but the fps amount is not enough and the picture is intermittent, not comfortable to watch.VGA has too low resolution but movement is smooth. The best choice for me became DL mode.

Picture quality is not impressive. You can recognize the licence plate number of the cars only near you. And it’s almost impossible to do in the night on moving cars. Night vision is pretty good, but the headlights of oncoming cars create large white holes on the picture. The same with the stop lights of the cars in front of you.

Plastic is very low quality, but I didn’t expect more for this price.

The dashboard mount works perfect, you just have to make the surface wet a little, and it will hold like with glue.

I have this DVR for 4 days.The video quality is not that bad at this price. Please see my videos.I use the following setting: SxGA(HD), 2 minutes file length, Transcend 8GB SDHC card (class 6). There are 6 seconds gap between the files. Something will happen in 6 seconds that you may miss.37 files X 2 min = 74 min; 7 GB memory used.

The day time video is shaking a lot because my wife held it due to the suction cup could not stick on the windshield more than 15 seconds. I though it maybe the windshield too cold (36 degree F) so I tried it on the dress mirror at home with different methods – clean both side, moisture the cup with water, with alcohol. It always falls down in 15 seconds.

I took out my Gamin GPS suction cup and tie the DVR on it with rubber band. Gamin suction cup sticks on the windshield like glued on it even in the evening with colder weather and raining time.

I took the night video with the same setting as the day video. You only can see the license plate number that at font of you with HIGH mount on a van or SUV. The license plate on a sedan car will reflect the lights that from your car low beam.I also took a night video in a clear night with / without the head-light on.The raining night video shows local and high way.I can hear the conversation with a little background noise on the playback records.

Once, the DVR suddenly stopped record without any reason while I was driving (cigar lighter power code was connected).

DVR was frozen twice in the last day. I had to take out battery to turn it off.

I decide to return this item and order another. It took a while for me to pull out the SD card.

Updated on 12/30/2011I received a new one on 12/23/2011 and use it every day without any problem.I set the record time to 10 min the longest record time, and the gap between the 2 files is 10 seconds. I tried both class 6 and class 10 SDHC cards and got same 10 seconds gap. I have to set it back to 2 min with 6 seconds gap. Lost 6 seconds record is better than lost 10 seconds record.

The video quality is better than the video I posted on Amazon. Because after I cut and combined the footages, it lost the quality during the save time. I will re-post the original video late.

Updated on January 16, 2012The temperature drop to 28 F last night and this morning the DVR completely die because my wife forgot to bring it home and left it in the car which parked outside. I took it in home and let it seat for few hours to warm up and recharged the battery, but the DVR still could not be turned on. Lucky it still in 30 day return period and I always save the package until 30 day return period past.